Hey, remember that time a Grammy Award nominated, internationally recognized, gold record selling, cool beyond measure band stopped everything to perform two back to back concerts benefiting CoEd? Yeah. That happened.
Last Friday, CoEd went to Hollywood and the experience was unforgettable. Here are the top five highlights:
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Jeff Berninger onstage with a superstar. The National’s lead singer, Matt Berninger, took the first 10 minutes of the show to invite Jeff onstage. He had the crowd’s undivided attention as he explained that on average, rural indigenous women in Guatemala spend less than two years in school. Then Matt talked about Kimberly – the girl whose scholarship the band is sponsoring and encouraged others to do the same.
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An Abundance of Awesome Artwork. If you’ve ever gone to Guatemala on a Snapshot Tour and we took you to a random house to see a statue of Maximon – a Mayan saint with a penchant for alcohol and cigarettes, you’ll appreciate this one. The graphic designer HORSE wanted to help and created a limited edition concert poster with proceeds benefiting CoEd. The prints sold out before the second show even started! 
And then there’s WRDSMTH – an artist so cool that he doesn’t even need vowels. He auctioned off four of his pieces on Instagram that featured words (or should I say wrds) from The National’s song England. Together, these artists raised over $5500 for girls education in Guatemala!
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The Troubadour. The same iconic Los Angeles venue that helped launch the careers of James Taylor, Elton John, Joni Mitchell, Radiohead and Coldplay welcomed CoEd, The National and 500 of our closest friends through their doors (twice). Having the concerts at the Troubadour took the coolness factor to a whole new level. The acoustics are some of the best in the world, and fans were so close to the band they could smell them. (Don’t worry though – they are famous – their sweat smells like roses).
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The National debuted their new song! Not only did National fans get to see their favorite band up close while also supporting a great cause, they also got to be among the first people in the world to hear Roman Candle, a song written for The National’s yet-to-be-released album. Yeah. We’re cool like that. And yeah. We know we’ve used the word cool in every highlight, but it’s not our fault it is the perfect descriptor for benefit concert goodness.
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Launch of the 1,000 Girls Initiative. The best part of the night was that it marked the official launch of CoEd’s 1,000 Girls Initiative – an effort to bring CoEd’s much-needed Scholarship and Youth Development Program to 1,000 Girls by 2020. Through this project, 1,000 young women will be able to receive educational opportunities that can help them and their families overcome poverty forever. Now that’s cool. This is only the start of a big change for Guatemala through the initiative and there will be more ways for you to get involved in the near future!
Thanks to all who came out and helped make the night unforgettable!
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